Book Notes

Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry. By Michael Ignatieff. Edited by Amy Gutmann. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001. Pp. 216. $19.95, cloth.

The product of the 1999-2000 Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Princeton University, Michael Ignatieff’s Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry seeks to reform rights proponents’ conception of the scope and limits of human rights. In his two essays, “Human Rights as Politics” and “Human Rights as Idolatry,” Ignatieff’s primary contention is that human rights in their operation are inherently political and thus provide a language to discuss wrongs inflicted on the powerless, rather than serving as moral trumps whose absolutism cuts short any such dialogue. With an introduction by Amy Gutmann and commentaries by K. Anthony Appiah, David Hollinger, Thomas Laqueur, and Diane Orientlicher, as well as a response by Ignatieff to these commentaries, Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry provides a varied discussion of the issues raised in Ignatieff’s two essays.

Ignatieff’s first essay seeks to establish the inherently political nature of human rights enforcement. Ignatieff asserts that failing to take into account the broader political environment in which human rights violations take place and clinging to a narrow conception of human rights as moral trumps can in practice defeat the very aims that human rights seek to achieve. Various human rights, he argues, can unavoidably conflict. As an example, Ignatieff discusses how the right to self-determination of a particular group can undermine state stability, which is usually conceded as a prerequisite for effective rights enforcement. Furthermore, the pursuit of self-determination as manifested in nationalist movements frequently results in the consequent violation of the rights of minority groups not encompassed by these movements. None of this undermines the legitimacy of human rights, argues Ignatieff; rather, it sets up a framework in which competing interests can be put on the table as legitimate aims to be pursued in attempting to effectuate a solution to any given problem.

Ignatieff’s second essay focuses on the dangers inherent in viewing human rights as a sort of secular religion. By elevating human rights to a level of sacredness or eternal good, Ignatieff argues that activists endanger the end goals of human rights by provoking needless moral opposition from religious and cultural groups. Discussing what he describes as the spiritual crisis among human rights proponents, Ignatieff criticizes the conception of human rights as being grounded in theology, be it secular or otherwise; he argues instead that the ultimate justification for human rights is based in history. We know what can happen when humans are deprived of their agency, and rights were developed to preserve this agency. They prescribe negative liberties and thus tell us what is right, rather than prescribing positive duties as to what is good. For Ignatieff, their ultimate goal is individual liberty, not secular faith.

The individualism promoted by human rights is frequently the most criticized aspect of human rights. Individualism, it is argued, is a Western concept that undermines community values and opens the door to the adoption of Western culture and the abandonment of tradition. Ignatieff’s response acknowledges the importance of group rights, such as the right to speak a particular language or practice a particular religion, but he emphasizes that group rights are only justified to the extent that they protect the rights of a group’s individual members. Furthermore, Ignatieff asserts that embracing individualism does not necessarily mean embracing Western ideas or ways of life. He supports this claim by emphasizing the extent to which human rights have gone global by going local. Human rights activists usually belong to the same culture as the victims of rights abuses.

Gutmann’s introduction to Ignatieff’s essay questions whether our conception of human rights should be restricted to preserving negative freedoms. Despite the minimalist conception of human rights currently adopted, human rights have not commanded universal acceptance, leading Gutmann to question whether an expansion of this conception would pose any actual harm. Like Ignatieff, Appiah’s commentary endorses the deliberate silence of the Universal Declaration as to the “why” of human rights (the result of an agreement to disagree among the Universal Declaration’s drafters). Appiah embraces this untheorized agreement of human rights as a pragmatic one essential for the function of rights in international law. Hollinger’s commentary provides a useful counterpoint to Ignatieff’s claims by appropriating the voice of the patriarchal and theocratic authoritarian, or PTA, and pointing out the likely opposition Ignatieff would face. Of particular worth is his assertion that, because human rights abuses are likely to occur in nations lacking the consent of the governed, the promotion of individual liberties inevitably means the promotion of social, cultural, and political conditions conducive to these liberties; the culturally transformative effects of such a promotion would be hard to deny to the PTA. Laqueur, in agreeing with Ignatieff that actual interventions in the affairs of sovereign states on the basis of human rights should be done sparingly and with guaranteed effectiveness, asserts in his commentary that we need not always rely on rights as the sole way to promote individual liberties, particularly if we accept the notion of human rights as politics. Finally, Orientlicher challenges the universalistic claims of human rights as presented by Ignatieff on cultural relativist grounds. She also argues for the necessity both of broader inclusiveness in the formation of human rights legislation and of greater transnational collaboration if any relativist critique is going to be successfully defeated.

Ignatieff’s response to the commentaries of Hollinger and Orientlicher in particular sum up his overall approach to understanding human rights. Ignatieff agrees with Orientlicher’s suggested strategies for opposing the relativist critique, stressing the need for intercultural understanding among human rights proponents in order to avoid imposing their values on those

they seek to help. Ignatieff plainly concedes that Hollinger’s PTA will not be persuaded, nor should it be expected that he or she would be. Human rights are directed at the powerless, not the powerful. Given that the PTA will not be convinced despite Ignatieff’s minimalism, Ignatieff nonetheless defends his resistance to advocating full-scale liberal democracies in all situations, both because democracy is far beyond the reach of many countries and because there is doubt as to whether majoritarian democracies are the best safeguards of human rights.

—Satyanand Satyanarayana

Copyright © 2003 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
Harvard Human Rights Journal / Vol. 16, Spring 2003